


Lost in the Night

by annilucy88



Category: Tin Man (2007)
Genre: Angst, Brain Damage, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-07-11 19:20:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7066804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annilucy88/pseuds/annilucy88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Months after the eclipse, everyone must deal with what happened, and while the others all carry on with nice and normal, happy lives, Cain and Glitch both have pre-existing trauma to contend with, and each only seems to be truly understood by the other, each stuck in their personal hells while everyone else around them is happy. Glitch gets lost in more ways than one, and it's up to Cain to help him remember.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost in the Night

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! Just a little something I put together back in 2009 after binge-watching Tinman for something like the 20th time in a week. Please don't hold my angsty teen-isms against me!

Cain stirred. He hadn't been asleep; he'd been laying between the cool sheets in a pair of pajama bottoms, feeling the gentle creep of the fabric warming, just waiting. He smiled to himself as he heard the door open and rolled to greet his lover, but his heart sunk a little at the words that greeted him in turn. 

"Oh," Glitch's familiar voice exclaimed quietly. "Um...sorry."

Cain rubbed his face for a moment and sat up. "Hey," he greeted patiently. "What's wrong?"

Glitch looked around the room. "Nothing," he assured his friend. "Nothing, I just..." He poked his head out of the door, looking back down the dark hallway. "I can't find my room..."

Cain sighed wearily and climbed out of bed. He grabbed a while pajama shirt and began to do it up, knowing from experience that things could get awkward if he stayed in his more casual attire on nights like this.

"Don't worry about it," he ordered with the same gentle professionalism that he'd handled Glitch with when they first me. "You can stay here tonight."

Glitch's brown creased. "What about you?" He asked.

"I'm not going anywhere." Glitch reddened "What? We've done it before."

Glitch blushed darker as he cast his memory back to earlier in the year, when Cain had found himself on the wet side of the ice, and only Glitches intervention, pulling him out of the cold and warming him up, had saved him. They had never talked about it, but Cain knew there was only one way you saved someone from hypothermia; even a roaring open fire didn't do as good a job as another human body, and the clothes he had woken up in were warm and dry and different to those he had been shot it.

"Under slightly different circumstances," Glitch muttered to himself.

Cain grinned and shrugged and sat back on the end of the bed. "Not so much," he reasoned. "Both are born of necessity. You don't know where your room is, after all, and you need sleep."

"You could always just tell me and let me be," Glitch said snappishly, like a child who thinks they are being mocked.

Cain shook his head. "Not a chance. You're obviously glitching, or you'd remember, and I don't want you alone in case something happens."

Glitch glared at him mildly. "And why's that?"

"For the same reason you pulled me from the ice," Cain answered easily, better practiced than he wanted to be. "Because we care about each other. We're friends." 

Glitch's glare melted and was replaced with a beaming smile. "Oh, well, that's alright then!" He accepted and started pulling off his boots. This was why Cain worried for him; he had said it many times before, and would undoubtedly do so again. Glitch was far too trusting for his own good, his fears easily swayed with words, like a child who only knows what it's told to know. "Move over."

Cain smiled, discreetly watching the other man as he stripped down to his shirt and unders. He climbed into one side of the bed, and Glitch joined him.

"Is this okay?" Glitch asked innocently, practically balancing on the edge furthest from Cain.

 _Far from it_ Cain thought, but didn't say anything. "It's fine," he agreed. "Just keep your cold feet on your own side."

Glitch smiled and scooted a little further still, perched comfortably on the edge of the mattress. He wriggled; something was pressing against his ribs. He assumed it was just a crease in the fabric, but when it didn't remove itself with his wriggling, he propped himself up on one arm to investigate.

"What're you doing?" Asked Cain, watching his actions. He realized what Glitch was laying on just a moment before Glitch himself. "Wait!" He tried to say, but the word was too late.

Glitch held up the buckled, leather strap attached to the bed.

"What's this then, Tin Man?" Glitch ribbed. "This is pretty...wrong, I think." He gave a little shudder, amusement fading and replaced with confusion. "Makes a guy worry about..." he glanced at Cain briefly. "...what...?"

Cain though about if for a moment, as long as he was technically allowed to think silently for, and then he sat himself up and looked Glitch directly in the eye. "It's nothing for you to worry about," he promised, watching Glitches expression.

Glitch's lips pursed, his face tensed a little more, genuinely afraid of what must seemed so sinister, like such a lapse of the other man's character. "I think I'd better get back to my room now," he said, his voice and hands trembling as he discretely tried to get off of the bed.

Cain moved to follow Glitch as he rose, grabbing one of his hands gently. "Glitch, this _is_ your room," he said, frustrated and trying not to be. "It has been for months; you and I are together, Glitch, and this is _our_ room. You just forget sometimes."

Glitch stared at him. Cain could see he didn't believe him. Glitch looked away before long, looking down at the leather strap on the bed. He could see it properly now; it was basically a glorified belt, with separate leather hand-cuffs, to most effectively pin your arms to your sides. He recognized it. Oh yes, he remembered that. Cain had it made recently - an exact replica of the one Glitch was tied down with for the operation that left him haunted and crippled. 

"It was your idea," Cain answered the unspoken question. "The dreams have been troubling you lately; you wanted me to try and help you not to be afraid."

"It's not working," he stated. He actually sounded angry. 

"I know."

"Then why is it still there?"

Cain closed his eyes a second. "That's not important."

"I want to know!" He was getting louder. 

Cain sighed. "We were going to try tonight," he said simply, voice soft. "You asked, so I set it up. My guess is, that why you glitched and forgot."

Glitch nodded slowly, processing, struggling. "Right," he muttered, still thinking. His eyes clouded over. "Of course. Yeah...what were we talking about?"

"You glitched," Cain explained gently. "You don't remember me, do you?"

"Of course," he answered with a friendly smile. "You're Cain. We're friends." 

Cain sighed again, pinched the bridge of his nose briefly, and shook his head. "That's not what I mean," he stated. "You and I are together; we have been for months. We were just about to retire and you glitched - you've done it a couple of times tonight." 

Glitch paused and looked down at himself, undressed and apparently fine with that, and then back to Cain. "Okay," he agreed innocently.

Cain took his hand again and tugged Glitch back down onto the bed, pulling him close this time so he wouldn't feel the belt and begin the process over. He settled the smaller man against his body, Glitch curling naturally and resting his head on Cain's chest. He might not remember Cain's place in his heart, but Glitch's body remembered its own place against his. 

"Is this okay?" Glitch asked in the same innocent voice he had earlier.

Cain smiled, rubbing his back and kissing the top of his head. "It's perfect. Are you okay?"

"Yeah," he murmured, relaxed and sleepy. 

"Do you remember?" He asked hopefully.

"No," he answered.

Cain kissed him again and tried to settle. He supposed it would have to do.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! All of my Tinman fics are pretty tame as they were originally posted on fanfiction.net which, as many of you know and loath, doesn't allow an explicit rating (or at least didn't in 2009, maybe they've changed that now). If you want to read more of my work for these two I would love to dive a little more into the potential of their relationship, you just let me know in a little review down below what you want to see and I'll give it my all. 
> 
> Also if you're interested the original story is over here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4784896/1/Lost-in-the-Night please feel free to check it out if you want, and please don't report me to myself for copyright 'cause that would just be plain weird. Again, thanks for reading, and I'll see you in the next part.


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